Chapter 160
-ROMAN-
I watched her leave the car and knew I had fucked it up again.
I did not want her thinking that I wanted space from her. Fuck, if she stayed away, I would lose my mind.
I knew I was wrong. About everything.
I got out after her, fast, and reached for her wrist before she could get into the house.
I did not get the sentence out.
Another car pulled in hard. Ethan. Blair.
Ethan was out before the engine settled. I could hear how pissed he was.
“What were you thinking?” he said to Olivia. “A hotel. With Luca. After the incident at the club. After dad warned you. Do you understand what that looks like? A hotel, Olivia? What were you even thinking?”
Olivia stopped and turned to face him, the Titans jacket still swallowing her shoulders. “I understand what it looks like. I was there. I also know what actually happened, which is nothing.”
I could hear the irritation in her voice. She was still pissed at me.
“There were cameras on you. There are articles everywhere with the family name. They even dragged Blair straight back into this because of the scandal. And you think nothing happened?”
“Yes, because like I said, nothing happened.”
Blair shut the car door carefully, one hand on her stomach. “Can we not do this in the driveway?”
Ethan ignored her. “Dad has the articles on his desk. All of them. You made this family look sloppy again.”
Fuck. Ethan needed to watch his words. There was no reason to be so harsh with her.
Olivia’s voice cracked and then went sharp. “I made us look sloppy. Right. Well I’m sorry for being such an embarrassment to the family.”
I held my head, frustration pounding behind my eyes.
I wanted to tell him to stop. I did not want to blow up years of friendship in front of a gate.
Olivia looked like she was hurt and furious and too fucking small in my jacket, and Ethan was talking to her like she was a problem he had to solve before morning.
“Dad is waiting,” Ethan said. “If this is how you’re going to act, maybe he is right. Maybe a marriage is the only thing that keeps your name off another scandal.”
That did it.
I could not hold back.
7744
Mon, Sepci JIMU
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
“Hey. Lay off her.” It came out harsher than I meant. “She’s had a rough night. Nothing happened with
Luca. It wasn’t just the two of them in that suite. His friend Charlotte was there. Another woman. You need to relax.”
The driveway went still.
Olivia looked at me like she had not expected anyone to stand on her side. Especially not me.
Her mouth parted from the surprise. But she was still angry with me. I could sense it.
Ethan looked at me like I had walked into a room I did not belong in.
“How do you know that?”
“I went to the hotel. I was there. You have nothing to worry about.”
Blair closed her eyes. Olivia’s gaze flicked from me to her brother and back, panic under the anger now, because Ethan did not know why I would drive to the hotel for her and I could not give him the real
reason.
“You left after the game,” Ethan said slowly, “and went to Vescari’s hotel.”
“Yes.”
“For my sister.”
“Yes.”
He stared at me. I could see the confusion there. I wasn’t aware of how deeply I cared for Olivia. I could see him trying to figure it out.
Blair found her voice. Quiet. Tired. “He’s right about one thing. Ease up, Ethan. She looks like she has already been through it. Yelling at her on the walk before dad gets his turn is not going to fix things. It just makes her walk into that office already destroyed.”
Ethan turned to her, then stopped, then looked back at me.
“Just leave her alone,” I growled. I was pissed. And this wasn’t an easy thing to do.
“This is not your call,” he said. “This is my family.”
“I know whose family it is.”
Olivia wrapped the jacket tighter around herself. “I can speak for myself.”
“Then speak in the office,” Ethan snapped.
“Maybe you should go home,” he said as he turned to me, clipped, colder than I had ever heard him. “This is a family matter.”
My jaw clenched.
I wanted to stay at her side. But I knew she was safe here.
T4U Mon, Sep 21 MS
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Blair would protect her from her family’s anger about the situation.
en Ethan, furious as he was would not cross a line and may eventually apologize to her.
If I stayed I was going to say more. If I said more I was going to ruin everything I was trying to protect from the start.
Olivia’s eyes flicked to me. Hurt still in them from the car. From every time I had chosen a door that was not hers. She did not ask me to stay. She also did not look like she wanted me to leave.
“Okay.”
I walked back to the car.
Ethan watched me like a question he was not ready to ask. Did he suspect that something was going on between us now?
Olivia stood on the driveway in my jacket and did not call me back.
I pulled out of the gate with his voice already rising again behind me and my swollen hand throbbing on
the wheel.
Family matter.
Going home was the decent thing.
It felt like running.
I drove anyway, because he had asked, and because if I walked into that office with her I would not come out still looking like his best friend.
AD
Comment
Send gift
No Ads
T41 Mon) Sep 21 1 M J
The Mockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.